Crossroads (2 page)

Because they often had to haul different odds and ends of equipment in the trailer her father had converted into their home Dad had never installed real walls. Partitions were simply blankets or drapes on ropes, even enclosing the toilet and sink and shower. Slipping into the bathroom Kira brushed her teeth, staring at the bare wall of the trailer where no mirror had ever hung. Finishing her nightly toilet she met her mother in the hallway.

Kira stopped and hugged her, burying her face in her warm blouse.

"What are your nightmares about?" Kira whispered.

Her mother hugged her tighter, stroking back Kira’s hair and kissing her forehead.

"Sometimes people owe a penance for things they didn’t do, simply because of who they are. One day maybe you’ll understand...Maybe tomorrow we should talk."

"Why not now?"

"Because I need to speak to your father first, and because some of the things that need to be said should be spoken only in the light of day."

"I’m scared," Kira admitted.

"Your father and I are going to protect you," said her mother, but Kira heard something close to an echo of her father’s lie in her mother’s voice, and when they stared into each other’s eyes her mother
knew
she knew.

"Maybe nothing will happen," said her mother.

She reached into her blouse and removed the small necklace she wore always on its silver chain, placing it around Kira’s neck. The shiny pendant formed a half-open, staring eye.

"Promise me you’ll never take this off."

Kira nodded her promise. "What is it?"

"It’s called an Oculet, and it’s your birthright," said her mother, frowning. "If anything happens... Don’t ever take off the necklace."

"Daddy has one like this," said Kira, staring at the amulet before slipping it inside her tshirt.

"Yes, he does."

"Jen will know before anything happens," said Kira.

Her mother smiled sadly. "I think maybe Jen was sent to you for just that reason."

Kira nodded. "She’s my best friend."

"More than that. She’s your light. You follow her when it gets dark."

When Kira nodded again her mother stared blankly ahead for a moment, as though lost again in one of her nightmares.

"If anything happens, trust Jen," her mother whispered, holding her out at arms length. "Now it’s time to get into bed. Things will look brighter in the morning."    

Outside Kira could hear Bennie the Barker, announcing over the PA that all the rides were closed. The creaking of the Ferris wheel as it ground slowly to a stop. Fat Alice, trapped in her tent folds again, shouting at Whisky Coot to wake up and come untangle her. Drunken or disoriented towners, trying to find their way out of the grounds and bumping into the trailer on the way.

Her mother hugged her again, kissed her, and patted her on the bottom, nudging her down the narrow corridor toward her and Jen’s
bedroom.
But the sense of impending doom still clung, and she jerked back the blanket and fell across Jen onto her side of the mattress, clawing at the sheets and burying herself beneath the covers. As she huddled there, trembling, she felt Jen’s powerful hand forcing itself under the linens, finding her own, squeezing hard.

"You are who you are," said Jen, cryptic as always, and Kira finally took a long deep breath, slipping into the woman’s wide embrace, feeling her fear draining slowly away, and finally sinking into sleep.

She awakened sometime in the night, noticing first that there was no hint of her father’s snoring. He always snored. Always. Either he was awake, or he was not in bed, but outside she could hear the thrumming sound of the generator powering the airconditioner that cooled the trailer. All the midway lights were out, and only bleak starlight shone through the one, tiny window high overhead.

She rolled onto her side, lightly brushing Jen’s shoulder. Jen flopped onto her back, her eyes wide open. Kira slipped past her, climbing into her jeans. She tiptoed down the passageway and slid aside the cloth partition in front of her parents’ sleeping area. There was no one there. The clock on the bedside table read ten minutes after two. Her father was always up before the sun rose, checking out machinery or drinking coffee with the roustabouts, but it was still hours before dawn, and until then her mother would be lying there beside him. Always.

A tingle of fear tickled its way up her spine, and she hurried back to her
room
, pulling a sweatshirt over her t and slipping into her sneakers. Jen sat up and tossed off the blanket, fully clothed as always.

"Something’s wrong," said Kira, afraid that the evil she had been sensing for weeks, the source of her mother’s visions, was finally upon them.

Jen nodded, cupping a hand to her ear. "Listen."

For some reason the generator no longer thrummed, and the airconditioner fell silent as well. Suddenly Kira thought she heard a cat screeching, far off in the distance. Then there was deathly quiet again. When the next shriek sounded it was closer, and she knew instantly that it was no cat. Jen rose to her feet with no fear on her face, but she almost never showed emotion of any kind. Kira doubted if she’d look scared while a crocodile was eating her.

Suddenly there was a chorus of screams, as though every man and woman in the show were crying out at the top of their lungs together. Kira took Jen by the hand and led her through the curtain toward the rear of the trailer. The small door hung half open, and although the cries were coming from the front of the truck toward the midway, they seemed to fill the dark night out back as well, as though the black sky were an echoing metal bowl. Kira led Jen down the wooden steps, and leaned to peek around toward the midway.        

No light shone, not even in Bennie the Barker’s trailer, and
he
left them on asleep or awake. He always said darkness was not his friend. Kira had never thought it was her friend, either, but she had never feared it the way she did this night.

Between the screams ripping the air all around them, she could barely make out a strange clicking sound, like giant insects rubbing their wings together. She peered into the darkness, but it was as though some force of nature were sucking the light right out of the stars twinkling dimly over their heads.

Where were her mother and father?

She clutched Jen’s hand tighter, the sounds reminding her of something else her mother had once told her.

Evil sounds and smells mean evil deeds.

There was a rustling behind the trailer, and she spun on her heel. Suddenly her mother was kneeling in front of her, shaking like a leaf and clasping Kira tightly. There were tears in her mother’s eyes, her hair was disheveled, and she was gasping for breath. She seemed terrified and sad at the same time as she pointed across the dark highway.

"Go that way!" she said, just loud enough for Kira to hear.   

Kira shook her head, but her mother kissed her, then shoved her away. "Go! Don’t look back. Keep running."

"Mother, please!" said Kira, clutching at her. "What’s happening? Where’s Papa?"

Her mother’s shoulders sagged, but she shook her head and pointed once more toward the trees. "I’m going to find your father. You have to run away now. Hide!"

"No, Mama! Please come with me!"

Her mother shoved her toward the road once more, her eyes hard now. "We’re all paying for something we didn’t do, Kira. I don’t want you to have to pay for it, too. Listen to Jen. Now run!"

"What about you?" whispered Kira. "What about Daddy?"

Her mother blinked away her tears. "I’m going to find him," she promised, turning to Jen. "Take her into the woods. If we can get to you we’ll be there in a few minutes. If not... Run away. And don’t come back here. Ever!"

Jen nodded.

"Mama!" Kira sobbed, wrapping her arms around her mother’s waist, but her mother pried her fingers away.

Tears poured down her mother’s cheeks. "If I can, I’ll find you. I promise... Now go!"

Then another kiss on the forehead, a last shove toward the wooded swampland across the highway, and her mother was gone into that awful darkness between the trailers. Kira barely felt Jen tugging her toward the road and then across. As they crashed through the stinging palmetto and sawgrass and into the mucky undergrowth beyond she heard the last of the screams falling away, and she realized that her mother had not told them where to go if she and Papa didn’t show up or when they could stop running.

Jen dragged the protesting Kira farther and farther into the swamp, the big woman’s powerful hand wrapped tightly around Kira’s wrist brooking no argument. They didn’t stop until they were so deep in the rank smelling bog that Kira was certain they were hopelessly lost, up to their knees in muddy water, and the only sound was one lonesome owl that complained about their presence with long mournful hoots.

"I want to go back," Kira insisted.

Jen shook her head.

"You can’t stop me," said Kira.

Jen just smirked. Kira knew that Jen could and would, and hotter tears of frustration mixed with the tears of fear and grief that already slickened her cheeks.

"What’s happening?" she whispered. "Why were they all screaming like that?"

"They’re dying," said Jen, simply.

"No!" shrieked Kira.

Jen slapped a hand over her mouth, silencing her.

The owl went equally quiet, and for the first time Kira sensed the swamp itself listening to them as much as they were listening to it. She took a deep breath, and Jen lowered her hand.

"I want Mama," whispered Kira.

Jen said nothing.

"I want her," said Kira, stomping her foot.

Jen sighed. "She’s dead."

Kira’s jaw dropped, and she shook her head in fierce denial, slinging more angry tears.

"She’s not," she spat between clamped teeth.

"We have to go," said Jen, suddenly. She was searching the woods, head cocked, eyes wide.

Kira shook her head again. "We have to go back for Mama and Papa."

Jen grabbed her hand again. "If we stay here you will die. I cannot allow that."

"They’re not dead."

"They are," said Jen, quietly. "Look inside yourself. You know."

Kira fought with all her heart to deny it, but she did know. There was an emptiness inside her that seemed too big for her to hold. As much as she wanted to go back and for things to be the same, they were never going to be the same ever again. She did her best to swallow her grief because it could only endanger her and Jen now, and because she knew that was what her mother and father would want. A fleeting image of her mother, waving them into the swamp, flashed across her mind. Finally she nodded at Jen, and they slipped stealthily deeper into the morass.

Several times during the night she heard the same weird clicking sound she had in the campground, but each time Jen managed to spirit them silently away. By dawn Kira had spiraled into an exhausted, grief-spawned funk, and if they had not found themselves back out on the highway with the early morning sun shining she might well have given up-no matter what Jen said-and simply lain down to await their pursuers.

But daylight and the sound of traffic only reminded her that the world kept on turning, mindless of the loss when carneys died. 

Kira’s instinctual distrust for the law had only been enhanced by horror stories repeated by all the people she knew in the show, but there was no running from the young sheriff’s deputy who pulled over onto the shoulder to block their path. He walked slowly back to them, crossed well-muscled arms, and leaned to stare at Kira with his dark sunglasses hiding his eyes.

"You’re with the carnival, right?"

Kira nodded, knowing he'd ignore Jen and talk to her. People thought they knew things about Jen just by looking at her. They thought she was stupid or retarded and that made her invisible. There was no sense lying to the cop. Who else would they be?

The cop bit his lip, staring up at the clouds as though there were people up there that were more interesting than Kira or Jen, but finally he looked at Kira again.

"Do you know what happened there?"

She nodded. "They’re all dead, right?"

He handed her a handkerchief, and she nodded her thanks, blowing her nose, a little saddened to find that there were no more tears within her.

"Aren’t they?" she whispered, glancing at Jen who shrugged as if to say
you already know
.

The cop sighed. "I think you ought to come with me," he said, waving toward the big cruiser.

"Aren’t they?" she said, standing her ground.

He hesitated. "If they were part of the show, they’re most likely dead, Missie. I’m sorry."

"Can I see them?"

"I don’t think that’s a good idea. They... they’re pretty..."

She nodded again, swallowing a large lump in her throat.

"We found some company records, names of current employees. We did a bod... we did a count, but when we found your picture, there wasn’t any... anyone who fit your description. You were the last one unaccounted for."

Kira opened the back door of the cruiser for Jen, but when Kira started to climb in, too, the deputy placed a hand over hers, shutting the door. "You can ride up front with me."

She frowned, but did as she was told. The interior of the car was artificially chilled, but Kira felt colder inside. Cold and empty. Her mother and father had always been there when she cried in the night, when she was sick, or when she just needed to hear them talking through the blanket walls. Now she’d never hear her mother laugh again, never see her father in his shirtsleeves swinging the big sledgehammer as he drove steel tent pegs, or walking through the midway in his best dress jacket, talking up the towners. A sob shook her, but she wouldn’t cry anymore. She couldn’t. She and Jen were on their own now, and she had to take care of Jen.           

"How old are you?" asked the Deputy, shifting the cruiser into gear.

"Fourteen."

"Kinda small for your age."

She shrugged. Towners were always taking her for being younger than she was. It didn’t bother her. The carneys knew how old she was.